NOT MY MUSIC
Rihanna joins growing number of musicians who are objecting to Trump’s use of their songs,
You can add Rihanna to the list of musicians appalled to discover their songs are getting played at Donald Trump rallies.
In fairness to the U.S. president, if the mood music that blasts before one of his fiery speeches was limited to those who like him, he’d be stuck playing a loop of Ted Nugent, Kid Rock and Sean Hannity singing in the shower.
Much in the way vegans hate the Keg, most musicians now see a Trump rally as an oratorical steak house where the hate speech is seared over open flames and served with a side of charred lies that are swallowed whole.
These rallies are a fear-apalooza in the key of crazy.
On Monday, at one of his scheduled events before Tuesday’s midterm elections, if Trump vowed to impose harsh sanctions on space aliens who are secretly importing crime and disease into America via the fifth dimension, the mob would cheer, give a middle finger to the sky, and rush out to buy cheap T-shirts and bumper stickers emblazoned with, “LOCK UP E.T.”
So you can understand why the greatest musicians alive today don’t want their songs to be heard within a five-mile radius of any MAGA event. This is shame by association. As R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe observed in 2015 after Trump used “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)” at a campaign rally: “Go f--k yourselves, the lot of you — you sad, attention-grabbing, power-hungry little men. Do not use our music or my voice for your moronic charade of a campaign.”
But three years later, not much has changed. Trump wants what Trump wants. And at his rallies, he wants hit songs.
On Sunday night, inside the McKenzie Arena in Tennessee, Rihanna’s “Don’t Stop the Music” thumped through speakers as the crowd, with their pursed lips and perpetual scowls, waited for their political superhero to put reality in a chokehold. This bothered the singer, who tweeted at the Washington Post’s Philip Rucker. “Not for much longer,” she wrote, daring Trump to keep using her music. “Me nor my people would ever be at or around one of those tragic rallies.”
Axl Rose from Guns N’ Roses tweeted similar sentiments on Sunday.
“Just so ya know,” he informed his fans, “GNR like a lot of artists opposed to the unauthorized use of their music at political events has formally requested r music not b used at Trump rallies or Trump associated events.”
Pharrell Williams recently revolted after his hit song “Happy” was used at a Trump rally hours after a gunman went on a killing rampage inside a Pittsburgh synagogue. Williams’ lawyer fired off a cease-and-desist letter.
If nothing else, amping up his base with “Happy” on a day of global mourning suggests Trump should now be scanning that migrant caravan moving through Mexico on foot to see if it includes a DJ with common sense. Not that it might help. The biggest problem is the chasm between Trump’s populism and the gods of popular music who see him as toxic. Most singers would now rather license their songs to Harvey Weinstein or Equifax.
But the question becomes: can musicians do anything about Trump’s disregard?
Vulture recently published a list of the performers who’ve objected to Trump using their music: Neil Young, R.E.M., Twisted Sister, Adele, Elton John, the Rolling Stones, Queen, George Harrison’s estate, Luciano Pavarotti’s estate, Steven Tyler, Prince’s estate, Pharrell Williams and, as of Sunday, Rihanna and Guns N’ Roses.
Much like Trump’s pant size or litany of falsehoods, the list just keeps growing.
So whatever happens with the mid-terms, the only good news for musicians is that campaigning will soon end and Trump will presumably return to golfing and nodding along to Fox News — that is, until it’s time for the next fear-a-palooza.
And this is where musicians need to get creative and proactive.
I think every artist with Billboard cred should look to Barbra Streisand for inspiration. She just released a new album about her disdain of Trump, including the track, “Don’t Lie to Me.” Streisand’s appeal, it’s worth noting, is bipartisan.
So what if artists everywhere flipped the script and wrote new songs exclusively for Trump to use at his rallies? This guy doesn’t have the attention span to analyze lyrics. And he’s sufficiently narcissistic to blast anti-Trump anthems, so long as he’s told they are pro-Trump bangers. If you informed him cyanide was his biggest fan, he’d gladly sprinkle some into his Diet Coke.
“Thank you, Cyanide! I appreciate the kind words.”
So instead of fretting over licensing loopholes, instead of hiring lawyers to parse the Lanham Act, musicians should beat Trump at his own game of deception and fake flattery. They should serenade him with new material laden with subtle subversion that he and his gullible flock could never detect.
Imagine if Mick Jagger dedicated a song to Trump called, “No Sympathy for the Devil.” Imagine if R.E.M. turned “Orange Crush” into “Crushed by Orange.” Imagine how a new genre of mind-bending, antiTrump-pro-Trump protest songs could chuck a sonic wrench into the future of MAGA propaganda.
If Trump and his fans were foolish enough to embrace Kanye West, they will accept anyone who claims to love him — even those who clearly hate him. Forget the cease-anddesist letters and public disavowals. That is not working. The best way for musicians to beat Trump is to do what he does to his admirers: trick him with lie after lie until the truth becomes background noise.